The person who sent in the photo was identified by name and location in the magazine. I did an internet search on the name and got a phone number. I called yesterday at 4 PM CST and got a phone answering machine, so I left a message.

I explained that I was trying to reach Mike Tomesh, the person who had submitted the photo to Outdoor Life magazine. I left a message stating that I was interested in getting additional information about the photo, as well as the original photo and/or negative.

I identified myself as Craig Woolheater with the Texas Bigfoot Research Center, and left my cell phone number for them to return my call. I figured that I wouldn’t hear back from them.

Well, I was wrong. At 6:50 AM this morning, I received the following email:

Craig, we were out of town when you left your phone message here. But just wanted to let you know that our trail cam picture turns out to be a prank to us from someone else. We apoligize and didn’t mean to upset anyone in your quest.Mike Tomesh

About Craig WoolheaterCo-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005.
I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films:
OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.

My girlfriend is actually from the Nort’woods of ‘Sconnie, and I hope that this fakery doesn’t deter real investigations up there. I’ve been to Washington state, and I tell you: the Northwoods of Wisconsin are just as isolated. If there’s a place for Sasquatch East of the Mississippi, its there. There are so few people north of, say, Wausau that anything could be up there.

Which is why, of course, that I find it interesting that the BFRO is beginning to set up expeditions out of Wausau to look for the Northwoods Bigfoot.

re #13
I would like to think that if a “real” photo were taken, that, yes, many would call it a fake (as is bound to happen) and that then the debate would begin (as is also bound to happen) and that this debate would then lead to the kind of detailed scrutiny that would either prove or disprove the authenticity (or lead to ongoing debate for years and years the way the Patterson film has).

What Outdoor Life neglected to print was the rest of the letter my father wrote to them explaining how the alleged “bigfoot” was really my uncle in a rented gorilla suit. So sorry, there are no cowardly hoaxers in my family. Except maybe my uncle, but I consider this more of a prank than a hoax.

“Did your father know that your uncle had pulled this “prank” before he submitted the photo to them?”

Yes, and like I said he wrote it in the letter he sent with the photo. Outdoor life didn’t print the complete letter.

“Was your father in on the “prank” or did he find out after discovering the photo on his game camera?”

No. He only knew of it once the film was developed and did some investigating. My parents actually assumed it was my brother or I who pulled the prank and we didn’t find out for a couple of weeks that it was my uncle.